1. Field
The present invention generally relates to techniques for mechanically testing computer systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus that generates a composite vibration profile in a frequency range for a computer system.
2. Related Art
Computer systems are becoming increasingly susceptible to performance degradation due to vibration. In particular, vibrations can impact the throughput of some new high-density disk drives, causing not only degradation of their performance, but also in some cases leading to computer system crashes or failures. In order to design and test new computer systems to limit the impact of these vibrational effects, computer systems are often tested on vibration tables while the impact on disk drive throughput is monitored. Since some computer systems are mounted in racks, computer system manufacturers sometimes also test the throughput of their computer systems while mounted in racks. However, vibration testing can be time consuming and associated test equipment can be expensive. Therefore, computer systems may often only be tested in one slot in a rack even though the vibration profile in one slot may not be representative of the vibrations in other slots in the rack.
Hence, what is needed is a method and system that generates a composite vibration profile in a frequency range for a computer system, without the above-described problems.